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France to create a network of ‘safe consumption sites’ for drug addicts

France's health minister Olivier Véran has announced that two new shooting galleries will be created every year, as health authorities struggle to deal with problems caused by drug addicts.

An employee prepares a users' kit at the supervised injection site in Strasbourg, one of two such facilities in France.

“We have approved funds to finance treatment and addiction centres,” Véran told France Inter radio on Wednesday. “I will provide health and social teams to wean off consumers who are currently on the street.”

As part of the project, the safe consumption rooms have been re-dubbed haltes soin/addiction – recovery/addiction centres (halte can be interpreted as a place to rest, or an order to stop), although they are also popularly referred to as salles de shoot (shooting galleries).

In a letter read out during a Fédération Addiction conference last week, Véran wrote that the goal of the new terminology was to “be done with the caricatures about ‘shooting galleries’ and concentrate on care”.

Extending the network

Véran said two new centres would be created each year at a national level. A law from 2016 authorises the creation of low-risk consumption rooms, but so far just two have been set up – one in Paris and one in Strasbourg. Those test facilities were due to run until 2022, but the government announced last week that they would be extended until 2025.

“I myself was an MP in 2015, involved in the creation of the first consumption room in Strasbourg and things are going very well,” he said.

“We therefore have proof that in our country this type of structure, providing support for withdrawal to avoid risk and unsanitary conditions and to better support the most vulnerable people, works.

In August, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced plans to create four new facilities in the capital. On September 15th, Prime Minister Jean Castex gave the green light for three of the four sites, but after discussions city hall decided to abandon the fourth site, which was due to be situated on rue Pelleport in the 20th arrondissement.

Crack smokers light their crack pipes on the docks at Stalingrad Square in Paris.

Crack smokers light their crack pipes on the docks at Stalingrad Square in Paris. Photo: JOEL SAGET / AFP.

The proposition had drawn criticism from local residents, who complained the site was too close to a school.

“We need coherent proposals for sites, meaning not 15 metres from a nursery or primary school,” Véran said on Wednesday.

Crack consumption is a long-standing problem in Paris, and users were once again evacuated from the jardins d’Eole and Stalingrad areas, towards Porte de la Villette in the 19th arrondissement on Friday.

Residents of the Pantin suburb of Paris denounced a “wall of shame” over the weekend, after authorities bricked up a tunnel under the Paris ring road to stop dispersed addicts from moving out of the capital.

How France compares to its neighbours

“France had fallen 40 years behind. The first low-risk consumption room in Geneva is more than 40 years old,” Véran told France Inter.

In fact, Europe’s first supervised drug consumption room was opened in Berne, Switzerland in 1986. In the 35 years since then, the concept has spread throughout the continent.

There are currently 78 official facilities spread across seven of the countries which report to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) – that includes the EU27 as well as third countries such as Switzerland and Norway.

In 2018, in addition to France’s two centres, there were: 31 facilities in 25 cities in the Netherlands; 24 in 15 cities in Germany; five in four cities in Denmark, 13 in seven cities in Spain; two in two cities in Norway; one in Luxembourg; and 12 in eight cities in Switzerland, mostly in German-speaking areas.

A map shows the locations of 78 safe drug consumption facilities in Europe.
Map: EMCDDA

As well as clean injection equipment and health advice, many of the centres offer access to primary healthcare and the possibility to take a shower and wash clothes.

According to the EMCDDA, “There is no evidence to suggest that the availability of safer injecting facilities increases drug use or frequency of injecting. These services facilitate rather than delay treatment entry and do not result in higher rates of local drug-related crime.”

The EU agency highlights the effectiveness of drug consumption facilities to “reach and stay in contact with highly marginalised target populations”, while the presence of facilities has also been shown to reduce behaviours such as syringe sharing that increase the risk of HIV transmission and overdose death.

While plans for drug facilities in Paris have proved controversial with residents, where centres do exist, they have been linked to a decrease in public injecting.

“In Barcelona, a fourfold reduction was reported in the number of unsafely disposed syringes being collected in the vicinity from a monthly average of over 13 000 in 2004 to around 3 000 in 2012,” the EMCDDA states.

READ ALSO French health system to offer free psychologist sessions

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POLITICS

New Caledonia airport to reopen Monday, curfew reduced: authorities

New Caledonia's main international airport will reopen from Monday after being shut last month during a spate of deadly unrest, the high commission in the French Pacific territory said, adding a curfew would also be reduced.

New Caledonia airport to reopen Monday, curfew reduced: authorities

The commission said Sunday that it had “decided to reopen the airport during the day” and to “push back to 8:00 pm (from 6:00 pm) the start of the curfew as of Monday”.

The measures had been introduced after violence broke out on May 13 over a controversial voting reform that would have allowed long-term residents to participate in local polls.

The archipelago’s Indigenous Kanaks feared the move would dilute their vote, putting hopes for eventually winning independence definitively out of reach.

READ ALSO: Explained: What’s behind the violence on French island of New Caledonia?

Barricades, skirmishes with the police and looting left nine dead and hundreds injured, and inflicted hundreds of millions of euros in damage.

The full resumption of flights at Tontouta airport was made possible by the reopening of an expressway linking it to the capital Noumea that had been blocked by demonstrators, the commission said.

Previously the airport was only handling a small number of flights with special exemptions.

Meanwhile, the curfew, which runs until 6:00 am, was reduced “in light of the improvement in the situation and in order to facilitate the gradual return to normal life”, the commission added.

French President Emmanuel Macron had announced on Wednesday that the voting reform that touched off the unrest would be “suspended” in light of snap parliamentary polls.

Instead he aimed to “give full voice to local dialogue and the restoration of order”, he told reporters.

Although approved by both France’s National Assembly and Senate, the reform had been waiting on a constitutional congress of both houses to become part of the basic law.

Caledonian pro-independence movements had already considered reform dead given Macron’s call for snap elections.

“This should be a time for rebuilding peace and social ties,” the Kanak Liberation Party (Palika) said Wednesday before the announcement.

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